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MCC Reach Achievements Announced. (Gaming)

by Morpheus @, High Charity, Tuesday, November 26, 2019, 18:03 (1584 days ago)

So, the new list of achievements from the Reach MCC port has finally arrived. Most of them are a combination re-issue of the 360 version(No Hear Me Beg, interestingly) and MCC defaults(par time, par score, 3 hour and LASO. God.)

There are others of interest, mostly forcing you to look at Easter Eggs that the casuals missed 9 years ago--one for each Data Pad, the double switch press on The Package(oh, and New Alexandria, so you know how long THAT will take), three separate Lone Wolf achievements, the race track, the Tribute Room--even a cop-out achievement; I guess my complaints were heard.

https://www.trueachievements.com/n39840/halo-reach-achievements-revealed-for-master-chief-collection

Read through--it'll make you smile. Three seperate achievements in the list are dedicated to Wu. This makes what, five total? Seriously, I don't think I've ever seen anyone else with that many achievements honored to their name. Definitely companies and/or memes, but never an individual!

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I know what I'll be doing after Christmas

by Blackt1g3r @, Login is from an untrusted domain in MN, Wednesday, November 27, 2019, 07:38 (1583 days ago) @ Morpheus

I'll be trying to 100% MCC Reach Achievements of course.

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MCC Reach Achievements Announced.

by MacAddictXIV @, Seattle WA, Wednesday, November 27, 2019, 07:39 (1583 days ago) @ Morpheus

Wait, MCC is on game pass? Am I oblivious or was that added to it after it was released? Well, either way, I love Reach so free download here I come!

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Yep

by ZackDark @, Not behind you. NO! Don't look., Wednesday, November 27, 2019, 08:14 (1583 days ago) @ MacAddictXIV

And coming to PC. I even subbed Ultimate Game Pass for this. So excited.

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MCC Reach Achievements Announced.

by Cody Miller @, Music of the Spheres - Never Forgot, Wednesday, November 27, 2019, 08:46 (1583 days ago) @ Morpheus

Sweet. Now that that’s done they can totally fix the classic mode rendering bug for Halo 1 that’s been an issue for 9 years now. I’m sure it will happen.

:-p

Hear Me Beg

by FyreWulff, Sunday, December 01, 2019, 11:26 (1579 days ago) @ Morpheus

Honestly, it's probably a good thing that one didn't come back. I think it was actually semi-bugged.

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Hear Me Beg

by Cody Miller @, Music of the Spheres - Never Forgot, Sunday, December 01, 2019, 12:11 (1579 days ago) @ FyreWulff

Honestly, it's probably a good thing that one didn't come back. I think it was actually semi-bugged.

Was this the one where an elite had to break your otherwise deadly fall?

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Hear Me Beg

by Morpheus @, High Charity, Sunday, December 01, 2019, 12:32 (1579 days ago) @ Cody Miller

Yep. I’m gonna have to take your word on the whole ‘bugged’ thing, because I honestly have no idea how it was so difficult.

When the game first came out, I misread it and thought you had to earn it in multiplayer. I spent so long jumping off Spire, Sword Base, and others trying to assassinate a player like that. On my fourth successful attempt and nothing happened, I was confused. When I found out it was for Campaign, it took me three minutes!

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Hear Me Beg

by ZackDark @, Not behind you. NO! Don't look., Monday, December 02, 2019, 03:08 (1578 days ago) @ Morpheus

it took me three minutes!

You got lucky. I got the assassination almost every time, still took me over 15 minutes of trying.

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Hear Me Beg

by Kermit @, Raleigh, NC, Monday, December 02, 2019, 09:19 (1578 days ago) @ ZackDark

I’m amazed at how cavalier both of you are. I never could get it. Jynx got it for me at a LAN, and it took him a good while.

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Hear Me Beg

by Korny @, Dalton, Ga. US. Earth, Sol System, Monday, December 02, 2019, 09:26 (1578 days ago) @ Kermit

I’m amazed at how cavalier both of you are. I never could get it. Jynx got it for me at a LAN, and it took him a good while.

It was bugged, so even if you did everything right, but you triggered the wrong assassination type, or the game read him as breaking your fall before the animation started, you wouldn't get it. Combine that with the game's poop framerate, and you've got more than timing against you.

I hope they at least use it to unlock an emblem/nameplate. :P

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Hear Me Beg

by Kermit @, Raleigh, NC, Monday, December 02, 2019, 10:06 (1578 days ago) @ Korny

I’m amazed at how cavalier both of you are. I never could get it. Jynx got it for me at a LAN, and it took him a good while.


It was bugged, so even if you did everything right, but you triggered the wrong assassination type, or the game read him as breaking your fall before the animation started, you wouldn't get it. Combine that with the game's poop framerate, and you've got more than timing against you.

You were at that LAN. :)

Yeah, there were several times I thought I should've gotten it, and even more times Jynx should have gotten it before it popped.

I hope they at least use it to unlock an emblem/nameplate. :P

+1

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Hear Me Beg

by Cody Miller @, Music of the Spheres - Never Forgot, Monday, December 02, 2019, 10:10 (1578 days ago) @ Korny

I’m amazed at how cavalier both of you are. I never could get it. Jynx got it for me at a LAN, and it took him a good while.


It was bugged, so even if you did everything right, but you triggered the wrong assassination type, or the game read him as breaking your fall before the animation started, you wouldn't get it. Combine that with the game's poop framerate, and you've got more than timing against you.

I hope they at least use it to unlock an emblem/nameplate. :P

This reminds me. I wonder if they are removing that really awful looking motion blur / temporal anti aliasing in the MCC version.

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Hear Me Beg

by cheapLEY @, Monday, December 02, 2019, 10:13 (1578 days ago) @ Cody Miller

They did. Or at least they did something so that it doesn’t look like ass anymore.

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Apparently so.

by Kermit @, Raleigh, NC, Monday, December 02, 2019, 10:15 (1578 days ago) @ Cody Miller

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Apparently so.

by Cody Miller @, Music of the Spheres - Never Forgot, Monday, December 02, 2019, 10:19 (1578 days ago) @ Kermit

https://twitter.com/ske7ch/status/1105850496110059520

Sweet. Now they have time to make classic mode for Halo 1 not look bad. I’m sure that will happen. :-p

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Apparently so.

by cheapLEY @, Monday, December 02, 2019, 10:31 (1578 days ago) @ Cody Miller

Or you could just put in the original game instead.

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Apparently so.

by Cody Miller @, Music of the Spheres - Never Forgot, Monday, December 02, 2019, 10:58 (1578 days ago) @ cheapLEY

Or you could just put in the original game instead.

It runs like ass on the 360 backward compatibility. It’s better on the one?

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Apparently so.

by cheapLEY @, Monday, December 02, 2019, 12:41 (1578 days ago) @ Cody Miller

It seemed fine, but it’s been a long time since I’ve played it and I don’t think that was for very long.

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Apparently so.

by Cody Miller @, Music of the Spheres - Never Forgot, Monday, December 02, 2019, 12:45 (1578 days ago) @ cheapLEY

It seemed fine, but it’s been a long time since I’ve played it and I don’t think that was for very long.

Split screen on the 360 emulation is unplayably slow.

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Apparently so.

by Kermit @, Raleigh, NC, Thursday, December 05, 2019, 06:01 (1575 days ago) @ Cody Miller

It seemed fine, but it’s been a long time since I’ve played it and I don’t think that was for very long.


Split screen on the 360 emulation is unplayably slow.

Never tried that. Otherwise, it seemed fine to me.

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Hear Me Beg

by Morpheus @, High Charity, Monday, December 02, 2019, 11:11 (1578 days ago) @ Korny

I hope they at least use it to unlock an emblem/nameplate. :P

You don't have to worry about that--it won't be in MCC.

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Sound is messed up right now on PC

by Spec ops Grunt @, Broklahoma, Tuesday, December 03, 2019, 15:10 (1577 days ago) @ Morpheus

Bad sound quality, terrible mixing, missing central channel.

Apparently all known issues and stuff 343 wanted to fix before release but Microsoft demanded a release before Christmas

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No 30fps option either :(

by CyberKN ⌂ @, Oh no, Destiny 2 is bad, Tuesday, December 03, 2019, 16:00 (1577 days ago) @ Spec ops Grunt

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At least you can play it.

by cheapLEY @, Tuesday, December 03, 2019, 18:25 (1577 days ago) @ Spec ops Grunt

Xbox's servers are screwed right now. I'm downloading at a whopping 5.85 Mb on my 500 Mb connection.

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At 27% Right Now. lol

by Morpheus @, High Charity, Tuesday, December 03, 2019, 18:55 (1577 days ago) @ cheapLEY

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501 KBps. Rofl.

by Morpheus @, High Charity, Tuesday, December 03, 2019, 20:21 (1577 days ago) @ Morpheus

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At least you can play it.

by Kermit @, Raleigh, NC, Wednesday, December 04, 2019, 08:32 (1576 days ago) @ cheapLEY

Xbox's servers are screwed right now. I'm downloading at a whopping 5.85 Mb on my 500 Mb connection.

Maybe you haven't opened MCC for a while? It must have automatically updated for me because when I bought it, it took just a few seconds for the license to download.

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At least you can play it.

by cheapLEY @, Wednesday, December 04, 2019, 09:18 (1576 days ago) @ Kermit

No, I specifically tried updating MCC the night before, where I did get the license. My understanding was that the actual Reach download wasn’t even available until yesterday. It wasn’t preinstalled before launch day or anything. Xbox acknowledges problems with servers last night. I went to sleep before I saw any update about them.

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At least you can play it.

by Kermit @, Raleigh, NC, Wednesday, December 04, 2019, 12:39 (1576 days ago) @ cheapLEY

No, I specifically tried updating MCC the night before, where I did get the license. My understanding was that the actual Reach download wasn’t even available until yesterday. It wasn’t preinstalled before launch day or anything. Xbox acknowledges problems with servers last night. I went to sleep before I saw any update about them.

Weird. I did have one of the flights installed, but not one with Reach installed.

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Sound is messed up right now on PC

by Cody Miller @, Music of the Spheres - Never Forgot, Tuesday, December 03, 2019, 19:29 (1577 days ago) @ Spec ops Grunt

Bad sound quality, terrible mixing, missing central channel.

Apparently all known issues and stuff 343 wanted to fix before release but Microsoft demanded a release before Christmas

How on Earth do they still have a decent reputation as a developer at this point?

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Sound is messed up right now on Xbox as well.

by Korny @, Dalton, Ga. US. Earth, Sol System, Wednesday, December 04, 2019, 08:47 (1576 days ago) @ Spec ops Grunt

Bad sound quality, terrible mixing, missing central channel.

Apparently all known issues and stuff 343 wanted to fix before release but Microsoft demanded a release before Christmas

If you read the final dev update before the game launched, much of it read like a mea culpa on issues they knew would be in the game at launch, but wanted to head off before they were called out on them.

Audio/mixing issues are present on Xbox as well (was Carter recorded in a phone booth?), but fortunately the rest of the game is fairly flawless, and MP has aged beautifully (besides the stupid decision to include Magnums in Zombies instead of ARs).

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This is what I was talking about

by Cody Miller @, Music of the Spheres - Never Forgot, Wednesday, December 04, 2019, 14:53 (1576 days ago) @ Korny

Remember when I posted that it was a giant shame 343 has left a classic mode renderer in for Halo 1 that makes it look decidedly worse than it did originally? 8 years now. Bugs like this are bad because it shits on the original artists and designers. I had to explain this to someone after they literally said “wow, this doesn’t look as good as I remember”.

And now the audio is messed up? The audio team doesn’t deserve this. This is what I’m talking about. When you remaster or port a game to a more powerful system, you owe it to being at LEAST as good as the original. I’m not saying the individual people at 343 doesn’t care, but whoever made the decision higher up to release the game with audio problems like this sure as hell doesn’t.

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I agree.

by Kermit @, Raleigh, NC, Wednesday, December 04, 2019, 19:30 (1576 days ago) @ Cody Miller

Although so far I haven’t heard a problem.

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I agree.

by Cody Miller @, Music of the Spheres - Never Forgot, Wednesday, December 04, 2019, 19:52 (1576 days ago) @ Kermit

Although so far I haven’t heard a problem.

Did Korny just drop fake news?

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I agree.

by Korny @, Dalton, Ga. US. Earth, Sol System, Wednesday, December 04, 2019, 22:33 (1576 days ago) @ Cody Miller
edited by Korny, Wednesday, December 04, 2019, 22:44

Although so far I haven’t heard a problem.


Did Korny just drop fake news?

It's weird. When I upload a clip to Xbox Live, the audio sounds different from what comes out of the screen (does the Xbox capture in Stereo while outputting 5.1? Apparently!).

Recording the screen, however:

Music and radio chatter tends to be the loudest thing, characters sound distant if you're looking right at them, louder when you're turned away, and your weapons sound muffled. Oddly, I don't have this issue in Cru- wow. Multiplayer matches.
Only Reach has had this issue.

I agree.

by EffortlessFury @, Thursday, December 05, 2019, 06:38 (1575 days ago) @ Korny

Although so far I haven’t heard a problem.


Did Korny just drop fake news?


It's weird. When I upload a clip to Xbox Live, the audio sounds different from what comes out of the screen (does the Xbox capture in Stereo while outputting 5.1? Apparently!).

Recording the screen, however:

Music and radio chatter tends to be the loudest thing, characters sound distant if you're looking right at them, louder when you're turned away, and your weapons sound muffled. Oddly, I don't have this issue in Cru- wow. Multiplayer matches.
Only Reach has had this issue.

It's a known issue and they are working on it. That said, yeah I totally noticed the issue immediately.

From MCC DEVELOPMENT UPDATE - NOVEMBER 2019:

To update Halo: Reach for Xbox One and PC required entirely changing the encoding for the game’s audio which has resulted in it sounding different from the original release. We are aware that areas of the title don’t sound like what you or we ideally want them to. It will take some time to work through solutions to improve the overall experience for audio and that work is already underway. When it is ready, we will flight to test the fixes we can make prior to updating the title. We also plan to go into more detail on our Reach audio journey in a later blog.

We did recently fix an issue with dynamic audio that we also saw some of the community report, this fix will be in for launch and has been reported to be improved in our Ring 1/2 flights.

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I agree.

by Kermit @, Raleigh, NC, Thursday, December 05, 2019, 08:26 (1575 days ago) @ EffortlessFury

Maybe it’s not as noticeable with headphones.

I agree.

by EffortlessFury @, Thursday, December 05, 2019, 13:04 (1575 days ago) @ Kermit

Maybe it’s not as noticeable with headphones.

I was using headphones. XD

If you'd like to compare yourself, listen to the AR firing sound in this video and compare it to the firing sound in-game.

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I agree.

by Kermit @, Raleigh, NC, Thursday, December 05, 2019, 14:06 (1575 days ago) @ EffortlessFury

Maybe it’s not as noticeable with headphones.


I was using headphones. XD

If you'd like to compare yourself, listen to the AR firing sound in this video and compare it to the firing sound in-game.

Well, that's embarrassing. I like to consider myself sensitive to audio differences. I'll chalk it up to fumbling with the different controller layouts throughout my brief playthrough of Winter Contingency.

Happens. ^_^

by EffortlessFury @, Thursday, December 05, 2019, 14:50 (1575 days ago) @ Kermit

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I agree.

by cheapLEY @, Thursday, December 05, 2019, 15:21 (1575 days ago) @ Kermit

I spent far too much time fiddling with layouts. There’s not a single one that really jives with modern shooter control schemes. Something is always off.

Developers, please just give us fully remappable controls.

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I agree.

by Cody Miller @, Music of the Spheres - Never Forgot, Thursday, December 05, 2019, 15:28 (1575 days ago) @ cheapLEY

I spent far too much time fiddling with layouts. There’s not a single one that really jives with modern shooter control schemes. Something is always off.

Developers, please just give us fully remappable controls.

That is apparently super duper hard though guys! Think of how much else 343 has on their plate. How the tiny indie studio that made Celeste managed that monumental feat is anyone’s guess.

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I agree.

by ZackDark @, Not behind you. NO! Don't look., Thursday, December 05, 2019, 17:37 (1575 days ago) @ Cody Miller

I imagine having 4 actions total to QA does help a bit

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I agree.

by kidtsunami @, Atlanta, GA, Thursday, December 05, 2019, 18:28 (1575 days ago) @ Cody Miller

I spent far too much time fiddling with layouts. There’s not a single one that really jives with modern shooter control schemes. Something is always off.

Developers, please just give us fully remappable controls.


That is apparently super duper hard though guys! Think of how much else 343 has on their plate. How the tiny indie studio that made Celeste managed that monumental feat is anyone’s guess.

You are astoundingly dense about what is and isn't hard to develop.

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I agree.

by Korny @, Dalton, Ga. US. Earth, Sol System, Friday, December 06, 2019, 08:56 (1574 days ago) @ cheapLEY

I spent far too much time fiddling with layouts. There’s not a single one that really jives with modern shooter control schemes. Something is always off.

Developers, please just give us fully remappable controls.

Don't forget that until devs start to think sensibly about controller freedom, you can always make a custom button mapping through the Xbox itself.
I know, I know, "I shouldn't have to do that", but I mean, the tools are at your disposal.

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I agree.

by cheapLEY @, Friday, December 06, 2019, 09:23 (1574 days ago) @ Korny

Honestly, I forgot about that. I might take the time to do that.

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Custom Controller Mappings

by squidnh3, Friday, December 06, 2019, 09:38 (1574 days ago) @ cheapLEY

The downside of custom controller mappings (which I use on my Elite) is that they will affect how you navigate menus, and specifically for Halo, may not work very well with the use of vehicles or dual wielding. There is no Universal Boxer scheme in MCC, so I have to replicate it from the normal Universal scheme, which involves changing a lot of buttons. So whatever you do, try to start with a base scheme that will involve the fewest transpositions possible.

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I agree.

by cheapLEY @, Thursday, December 05, 2019, 17:28 (1575 days ago) @ Kermit

The mix in general is just bad.

I’m surprised you didn’t notice. I thought the same thing, in that maybe it just didn’t sound great coming through my Vizio sound bar. Tonight I hooked my headphones, and I honestly think it sounds worse. The music is about three times as loud as it should be (which has always been a problem with Halo), the voices are all muffled, the gun sounds are all over the place in terms of volume, the Warthog sounds like a lawnmower from two blocks away.

Bungie’s my-way-or-the-highway attitude to audio has always bugged me, but whatever is happening here is awful and I hope it gets fixed. I wish they would just give us audio sliders for different elements like most modern games have.

There's at least a music slider?

by EffortlessFury @, Friday, December 06, 2019, 06:38 (1574 days ago) @ cheapLEY

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That’s only for music in the menus.

by cheapLEY @, Friday, December 06, 2019, 09:22 (1574 days ago) @ EffortlessFury

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um...

by EffortlessFury @, Friday, December 06, 2019, 19:45 (1574 days ago) @ cheapLEY

[image]

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um...

by cheapLEY @, Friday, December 06, 2019, 21:20 (1574 days ago) @ EffortlessFury

It literally doesn't exist on the Xbox version.

[image]

That's...bizarre.

by EffortlessFury @, Saturday, December 07, 2019, 00:01 (1574 days ago) @ cheapLEY

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That's...PC.

by Morpheus @, High Charity, Saturday, December 07, 2019, 15:19 (1573 days ago) @ EffortlessFury

Every game I’ve ever played on both systems, PC versions have sliders, consoles rarely do. That’s why (personally) nearly all my PC games are ports I already own—it’s usually because I wanna record something isolated!

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I agree.

by Cody Miller @, Music of the Spheres - Never Forgot, Thursday, December 05, 2019, 08:22 (1575 days ago) @ Korny

Open the file and double check. But yeah I’m almost 100% certain all the consoles downmix to stereo when using the built in recording feature.

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I agree.

by CruelLEGACEY @, Toronto, Thursday, December 05, 2019, 10:44 (1575 days ago) @ Korny

Although so far I haven’t heard a problem.


Did Korny just drop fake news?


It's weird. When I upload a clip to Xbox Live, the audio sounds different from what comes out of the screen (does the Xbox capture in Stereo while outputting 5.1? Apparently!).

Recording the screen, however:

Music and radio chatter tends to be the loudest thing, characters sound distant if you're looking right at them, louder when you're turned away, and your weapons sound muffled. Oddly, I don't have this issue in Cru- wow. Multiplayer matches.
Only Reach has had this issue.

Based on what you’re describing, it sounds to me like the Center audio channel is straight-up missing from certain audio elements (specifically character dialogue). If the video capture is pulling a stereo version of the audio rather than 5.1, that would explain the difference.

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I agree.

by Cody Miller @, Music of the Spheres - Never Forgot, Thursday, December 05, 2019, 11:12 (1575 days ago) @ CruelLEGACEY

Based on what you’re describing, it sounds to me like the Center audio channel is straight-up missing from certain audio elements (specifically character dialogue). If the video capture is pulling a stereo version of the audio rather than 5.1, that would explain the difference.

That would be outrageously incompetent if that is the explanation.

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Reach totally holds up.

by cheapLEY @, Wednesday, December 04, 2019, 19:38 (1576 days ago) @ Morpheus

I know I posted this last time I played through the game, but damn, Reach is still really great. Bungie's best game, still, I think.

I played up through ONI: Sword Base, and played a few multiplayer matches. The game still feels really great (despite constantly clicking the stick to try and sprint), and it looks really good in 4K, very clean.

And say what you will about the story, but they absolutely nailed the presentation.

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Reach totally holds up.

by Cody Miller @, Music of the Spheres - Never Forgot, Wednesday, December 04, 2019, 19:55 (1576 days ago) @ cheapLEY

And say what you will about the story

https://i.giphy.com/media/l4Jz3fRRdJsd7HStG/giphy.mp4

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Reach totally holds up.

by bluerunner @, Music City, Wednesday, December 04, 2019, 20:01 (1576 days ago) @ cheapLEY

I'm playing invasion again! It looks great. There's a bit of relearning but after a few games it all came back. I also tooled around in some of my old forge maps. Definately want a customs night sometime soon.

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Reach totally holds up.

by CruelLEGACEY @, Toronto, Thursday, December 05, 2019, 05:11 (1575 days ago) @ bluerunner

Might have to see if I can dig up the files for my old racetracks :)

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Reach totally holds up.

by bluerunner @, Music City, Thursday, December 05, 2019, 05:32 (1575 days ago) @ CruelLEGACEY

I loaded up Sangheili Don't Surf last night. Would love to get 16 people together on it again.

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Count me in.

by Malagate @, Sea of Tranquility, Thursday, December 05, 2019, 06:01 (1575 days ago) @ bluerunner

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Reach totally holds up.

by Kermit @, Raleigh, NC, Thursday, December 05, 2019, 06:11 (1575 days ago) @ bluerunner

That video never gets old. Lots of names I miss on that scoreboard. I’m in, of course. Look for some co-op nights after the holiday.

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Reach totally holds up.

by ZackDark @, Not behind you. NO! Don't look., Thursday, December 05, 2019, 12:32 (1575 days ago) @ Kermit

Look for some co-op nights after the holiday.

Hype

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That’s awesome!

by CruelLEGACEY @, Toronto, Thursday, December 05, 2019, 07:40 (1575 days ago) @ bluerunner

I loaded up Sangheili Don't Surf last night. Would love to get 16 people together on it again.

How have I never seen this before? :)

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That’s awesome!

by bluerunner @, Music City, Thursday, December 05, 2019, 09:00 (1575 days ago) @ CruelLEGACEY

One night I was watching Apocalypse Now and the idea for the map hit me. I made several invasion maps but that one has always been my favorite.

That was all from the same round one night. Korny filmed and edited it. We played it often, but I can still remember a lot of details from that particular game.

Highlight of Reach for me was when Bungie shared that video.

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That’s awesome!

by CruelLEGACEY @, Toronto, Thursday, December 05, 2019, 09:11 (1575 days ago) @ bluerunner

One night I was watching Apocalypse Now and the idea for the map hit me. I made several invasion maps but that one has always been my favorite.

That was all from the same round one night. Korny filmed and edited it. We played it often, but I can still remember a lot of details from that particular game.

Highlight of Reach for me was when Bungie shared that video.

The crazy thing is I’m pretty sure I’ve played on that map before, during one of the Halo Waypoint game nights. Had no idea you were behind it :)

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That’s awesome!

by Kermit @, Raleigh, NC, Thursday, December 05, 2019, 09:14 (1575 days ago) @ CruelLEGACEY

I loaded up Sangheili Don't Surf last night. Would love to get 16 people together on it again.


How have I never seen this before? :)

I don't think you were posting much on HBO in 2011--at least not as CruelLEGACEY. (Not to say you weren't lurking--I never posted on Marathon forums, although I lurked quite a bit.) Korny's film was one of the highlights of the Reach era over there.

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Reach totally holds up.

by SonofMacPhisto @, Thursday, December 05, 2019, 10:11 (1575 days ago) @ bluerunner

Great memories of that map!

Destiny custom maps when

by someotherguy, Hertfordshire, England, Saturday, December 07, 2019, 03:55 (1573 days ago) @ bluerunner

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Anyone drive the forklift yet?

by Cody Miller @, Music of the Spheres - Never Forgot, Friday, December 06, 2019, 17:35 (1574 days ago) @ cheapLEY

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Pfft, you know it.

by SonofMacPhisto @, Saturday, December 07, 2019, 11:46 (1573 days ago) @ Cody Miller

Jumped in the first one I saw. Went straight at a fusion coil and exploded.

We also got one in the elevator after the first Hunter pair. Exploded that too.

#HaloingCorrectly

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I’d almost forgotten how great Bungie campaigns used to be.

by CruelLEGACEY @, Toronto, Saturday, December 07, 2019, 15:09 (1573 days ago) @ cheapLEY

Downloaded the MCC version of Reach and spent a couple hours with it today.

In the first 5 missions, I’ve:

• Played through multiple non-linear objectives
• Wielded a huge array of fun and effective weaponry
• Piloted multiple ghosts, wraiths, civilian vehicles, a revenant, and 3 types of warthog.
• Defended civilian NPCs and fought along side fellow spartan and marine NPCs.
• Used a laundry list of different armour abilities
• Infiltrated enemy strongholds, AA turrets, shield towers, and spaceships
• Defended a space station and attacked a Covenant corvette while dogfighting against enemy fighters as friendly and enemy capital ships exchanged fire all around me.
• Fought in a low-G situation
• Repelled a fleet of banshees with a rocket launcher
• Been attacked by giant native wildlife
• Blown a ton of stuff up using the mounted grenade launcher on an airborne Falcon
• Hijacked enemy vehicles

All of this while playing through a well told story with great characters and a beautifully realized world.

Jeebus, this game is incredible :)

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I’d almost forgotten how great Bungie campaigns used to be.

by cheapLEY @, Saturday, December 07, 2019, 18:28 (1573 days ago) @ CruelLEGACEY

I think Forsaken is the best campaign Bungie has ever made in Destiny. It is complete garbage when compared to any Halo campaign (and especially Reach).

Bungie still knows how to to make great encounters and interesting spaces (look no farther than the Shattered Throne and Pit of Heresy for that). It's the set-piece moments they sort of forgot how to do well. Nothing in Destiny compares to taking out AA guns to clear the skies for a bombing run while Banshees and Falcons duke it out in the skies above you, or using a Falcon of your own to run cover for a city evacuation as the Covenant begin glassing it in the distance, or escaping in a Warthog as Halo literally falls apart around you, or . . . well, the examples are far too numerous to continue listing.

As I was playing Reach, I really had this desire for Bungie to return to Halo at some point. I want to play as a Spartan assaulting a Covenant stronghold that takes the best aspects of the design ethos of the Shattered Throne and Pit of Heresy, with all the blockbuster moments the Reach campaign throws at us.

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I’d almost forgotten how great Bungie campaigns used to be.

by narcogen ⌂ @, Andover, Massachusetts, Saturday, December 07, 2019, 18:58 (1573 days ago) @ cheapLEY

I think Forsaken is the best campaign Bungie has ever made in Destiny. It is complete garbage when compared to any Halo campaign (and especially Reach).

Bungie still knows how to to make great encounters and interesting spaces (look no farther than the Shattered Throne and Pit of Heresy for that). It's the set-piece moments they sort of forgot how to do well.

I don't think it's forgot. I think it's a question of iterative investment.

Destiny is, at least broadly speaking, exactly the sort of game I wanted Bungie, or Valve, or someone to deliver-- something like the 10-12 level solo story-driven experience, but with co-op as an always-available option, but in chunks available on a per-year basis instead of a 3-year basis.

I think the problem is that no one either knows how, or is able to currently deliver on that, because while none of the individual parts of that experience necessarily require a full 3 years to deliver on, current pipelines don't necessarily provide for 1/3 of that experience to be delivered within a single year.

I think it's sort of a reverse man-month myth. Each of the component parts of a Halo-like experience benefit from having a full 3 years to incubate even if none of them, individually, take that long to produce. And while it might seem like 1/3 of that amount of content can be delivered in 1/3 of the time, this is not strictly speaking true, and various methods have been used to make it come true-- outsourcing to 3rd parties, funding via microtransactions, etc.

The largest satisfying content chunk delivered in the fewest number of developer-hours to date remains ODST, and it still remains to be determined whether Bungie or anyone else is committed to delivering content like that on a similar schedule, or is able to make the necessary compromises to do so.

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Good post!

by Kermit @, Raleigh, NC, Sunday, December 08, 2019, 11:17 (1572 days ago) @ narcogen

Still waiting for Destiny's actual endgame (and no, I haven't seen the Marvel movie, so I'm not trying to echo that).

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Good post!

by Cody Miller @, Music of the Spheres - Never Forgot, Sunday, December 08, 2019, 11:22 (1572 days ago) @ Kermit

Still waiting for Destiny's actual endgame (and no, I haven't seen the Marvel movie, so I'm not trying to echo that).

We are 5 years into the 10 year plan. Halfway. Given the way the storytelling is, I don’t see how any conclusion could be anything other than rushed and ineffective.

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I’d almost forgotten how great Bungie campaigns used to be.

by Cody Miller @, Music of the Spheres - Never Forgot, Sunday, December 08, 2019, 11:20 (1572 days ago) @ narcogen

Critical mass.

Also why DLC is a fundamentally flawed concept artistically versus large scale expansion packs.

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I’d almost forgotten how great Bungie campaigns used to be.

by CommanderCartman, Redmond, WA and Jeddah, SA, Sunday, December 08, 2019, 12:46 (1572 days ago) @ Cody Miller

I 100% agree. God Halo Reach has an awesome narrative. So fucking good.

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I’d almost forgotten how great Bungie campaigns used to be.

by squidnh3, Monday, December 09, 2019, 08:28 (1571 days ago) @ CruelLEGACEY

All of this while playing through a well told story with great characters and a beautifully realized world.

I think there's probably some additional reasons why Destiny isn't quite like this, but one thing that would help would be difficulty modifiers. Being able to waltz through every mission without any sense of stress or problem solving isn't conducive to any experience.

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I’d almost forgotten how great Bungie campaigns used to be.

by CruelLEGACEY @, Toronto, Monday, December 09, 2019, 09:22 (1571 days ago) @ squidnh3

All of this while playing through a well told story with great characters and a beautifully realized world.


I think there's probably some additional reasons why Destiny isn't quite like this, but one thing that would help would be difficulty modifiers. Being able to waltz through every mission without any sense of stress or problem solving isn't conducive to any experience.

I think that's a great point, and I totally agree... BUT...

I just replayed the entire Reach campaign on Normal, and I'm blown away by how impactful the story was, even with the relatively low difficulty. I'm a guy who has gone on and on about how stressful gameplay scenarios are a crucial part of storytelling in video games. I think the ability to make a player feel nervous and tense and exhausted purely through their in-game actions is one of the key things video games can do that other storytelling mediums can't. And yet, despite that, Reach's campaign still hits hard even when the gameplay experience isn't so stressful. And I think there's a very specific reason why.

The way Reach's story progresses is as an increasingly dire string of "we won that battle, but we're still losing the war" moments. Even if you, Noble 6, are kicking ass left, right, and center as you play through the campaign, the greater situation around you is going further and further to hell. I think this creates an experience where playing on a higher difficulty enhances the feelings of hopelessness and being overwhelmed, but those feelings still exist even when the player is stomping everything in their path.

Halo CE actually nailed the same formula. I think that's at least part of the reason why both campaigns are so good across all difficulty levels.

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I’d almost forgotten how great Bungie campaigns used to be.

by Cody Miller @, Music of the Spheres - Never Forgot, Monday, December 09, 2019, 10:53 (1571 days ago) @ squidnh3

I think there's probably some additional reasons why Destiny isn't quite like this

I have written about this before:

https://destiny.bungie.org/forum/index.php?id=35662

The answer is the investment system combined with the Journey style seamless matchmaking.

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More bugs that affect the artists

by Cody Miller @, Music of the Spheres - Never Forgot, Sunday, December 08, 2019, 09:41 (1572 days ago) @ Morpheus

This version of Reach has a pretty significant bug with the post processing pipeline, in that the effect size does not scale with resolution. According to digital foundry, if say the depth of field blur is supposed to be 10 pixels at the original ~720p resolution of the original, it is STILL 10 pixels if you run the game at a higher resolution, not scaling properly. So any post processing like depth of field, ssao, grain, or bloom is completely messed up at nigher resolutions, disappearing or being severely lessened. The light bloom in particular is a giant difference.

There were comparisons of the audio, and I was shocked that it was so atrocious and sounded NOTHING like the original.

Again. These things are really careless and shit on the great work Bungie's artists have done.

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by CruelLEGACEY @, Toronto, Sunday, December 08, 2019, 23:15 (1572 days ago) @ Cody Miller

This version of Reach has a pretty significant bug with the post processing pipeline, in that the effect size does not scale with resolution. According to digital foundry, if say the depth of field blur is supposed to be 10 pixels at the original ~720p resolution of the original, it is STILL 10 pixels if you run the game at a higher resolution, not scaling properly. So any post processing like depth of field, ssao, grain, or bloom is completely messed up at nigher resolutions, disappearing or being severely lessened. The light bloom in particular is a giant difference.

There were comparisons of the audio, and I was shocked that it was so atrocious and sounded NOTHING like the original.

Again. These things are really careless and shit on the great work Bungie's artists have done.

FWIW, I just finished playing through the whole campaign, and thought it looked and sounded fantastic. I was wearing a stereo headset, so I didn’t notice any of the audio glitches that have been described. As far as the visuals, well, it looks great. Of course it looks slightly different than from the original, but isn’t that the whole point? Don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t want changes that mess with the aesthetic style or visual formula of the original (like Halo Anniversary’s updated graphics did). But MCC Reach isn’t that. It’s a sharper, smoother-looking version of the original. I can’t imagine anyone who worked on Reach playing the MCC version and thinking “hey, they messed up the graphics!”. I bet they’re most likely happy to see a modernized version of their game.

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by Cody Miller @, Music of the Spheres - Never Forgot, Monday, December 09, 2019, 08:15 (1571 days ago) @ CruelLEGACEY

I’m not saying being sharper and smoother is bad. It’s that all the post processing is incorrectly scaled based on resolution, so the effect and aesthetic Bungie was going for is lost. Look at bloom comparisons, as they are the most obvious.

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by CruelLEGACEY @, Toronto, Monday, December 09, 2019, 09:03 (1571 days ago) @ Cody Miller

I’m not saying being sharper and smoother is bad. It’s that all the post processing is incorrectly scaled based on resolution, so the effect and aesthetic Bungie was going for is lost. Look at bloom comparisons, as they are the most obvious.

And I’m saying that’s an incredibly nit-picky issue. MCC Reach looks like Reach. The aesthetic style is very much intact and well presented.

I’m not saying it’s wrong to wish that the light-bloom effects were recreated perfectly. I get that. I am saying that when you play the game, it looks and feels like Halo Reach. There is no betrayal or failure to deliver the original artistic vision, IMO.

It’s also really tricky to describe visual changes as purely good or purely bad. The original release of Reach suffered from a great deal of visual ghosting, particularly when rendering objects in motion. That blurry, “double-vision” look was ever-present. This MCC release has fixed that problem. I look at it and think “this is how I’d always wished Reach looked”, but from a purely archival point of view, this improvement does change “the look” of the game. Same goes for the frame rate. Stutter and slow-down was part of the original look. Playing the game at 60fps is not “true to the original aesthetic”, but I’m sure most people prefer it nonetheless. Light bloom is less straightforward, but my point still applies. It can be used as an aesthetic touch, but it can also be used to hide a certain degree of low-res textures and overall lack of detail (as someone who used loads of bloom effects in my machinima, I’m pretty dialed into that, lol). Light bloom was part of Reach’s look, and it was simultaneously contributing to the lack of visual definition and clarity. So “better” or “worse” depends on what you want and expect; an archival reproduction of the original, or a modernized update.

At the end of the day, all this stuff will boil down to personal preferences. In the case of The Last of Us Remastered, I actually preferred the visuals of the original PS3 version. The artistic design that went into creating the textures was perfectly suited to the screen resolution of the PS3. The lower resolution actually helped blur the lines (literally) between texture maps, sprites, and fully 3D assets. In the Remastered version, the higher screen resolution just made it easier to see the separate elements that were layered together. Walls that looked like cracked brick covered in vines on the PS3 now looked more like a smooth surface covered in wallpaper painted to look like bricks and vines, with a few sprites sticking out to give the illusion of depth.

All this to say, I think it’s perfectly fair for someone to look at a game like MCC Reach and day “I prefer the look of the original”. I don’t happen to agree in this case, but that doesn’t matter. Where I push back is when there are claims of disrespect to the original vision, or something along those lines. Like, I might take those claims seriously if they’re coming from an artist that worked on Reach, but as a general rule I don’t think the whole “I’m going to act offended on behalf of someone else” routine carries much weight :)

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by Cody Miller @, Music of the Spheres - Never Forgot, Monday, December 09, 2019, 10:49 (1571 days ago) @ CruelLEGACEY

It’s also really tricky to describe visual changes as purely good or purely bad. The original release of Reach suffered from a great deal of visual ghosting, particularly when rendering objects in motion. That blurry, “double-vision” look was ever-present. This MCC release has fixed that problem. I look at it and think “this is how I’d always wished Reach looked”, but from a purely archival point of view, this improvement does change “the look” of the game.

This is fine, because it preserves the artistic intent. The temporal anti aliasing is shit, but necessary because of the hardware. New hardware, no longer necessary. This is more of a technical choice than an artistic one in my opinion.

Same goes for the frame rate. Stutter and slow-down was part of the original look. Playing the game at 60fps is not “true to the original aesthetic”, but I’m sure most people prefer it nonetheless.

This is a technical improvement, not an artistic one. Stutter and slow down were not used purposefully in some artistic manner. There are some games (mostly older games for older consoles) that were balanced around this, and thus it IS a part of the game. Gradius 3 is an example. There is a ROM patch out there which makes the game play smooth, but it is unreasonably hard as a result. Case by case basis.

At the end of the day, all this stuff will boil down to personal preferences. In the case of The Last of Us Remastered, I actually preferred the visuals of the original PS3 version. The artistic design that went into creating the textures was perfectly suited to the screen resolution of the PS3. The lower resolution actually helped blur the lines (literally) between texture maps, sprites, and fully 3D assets. In the Remastered version, the higher screen resolution just made it easier to see the separate elements that were layered together. Walls that looked like cracked brick covered in vines on the PS3 now looked more like a smooth surface covered in wallpaper painted to look like bricks and vines, with a few sprites sticking out to give the illusion of depth.

I never played it on PS3, but this kind of the thing I'm talking about.

All this to say, I think it’s perfectly fair for someone to look at a game like MCC Reach and day “I prefer the look of the original”. I don’t happen to agree in this case, but that doesn’t matter. Where I push back is when there are claims of disrespect to the original vision, or something along those lines.

It's just carelessness. That can be disrespectful depending on how you look at it. This is not nearly as bad as the Halo 1 'classic' mode on the visual side. But on the audio side I'd say it actually is disrespectful to release as it now sounds.

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by cheapLEY @, Monday, December 09, 2019, 11:19 (1571 days ago) @ Cody Miller

I maintain that if you have to look at a side by side comparison to even notice it (which you totally do for almost every single one of the things Digital Foundry talks about), then it doesn’t matter.

Play the MCC version of Reach without having someone point out those issues, and they’re not even noticeable. Cruel is right—it just looks like Reach.

I disagree with him on the sound, though. That was immediately noticeable to me. It didn’t really affect my enjoyment, but I knew something was off the entire time I played.

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by CruelLEGACEY @, Toronto, Monday, December 09, 2019, 12:11 (1571 days ago) @ cheapLEY

I maintain that if you have to look at a side by side comparison to even notice it (which you totally do for almost every single one of the things Digital Foundry talks about), then it doesn’t matter.

Play the MCC version of Reach without having someone point out those issues, and they’re not even noticeable. Cruel is right—it just looks like Reach.

I disagree with him on the sound, though. That was immediately noticeable to me. It didn’t really affect my enjoyment, but I knew something was off the entire time I played.

I played through half the game using nothing but my TV speakers with the volume way down, so I probably wouldn’t have noticed any problems with the audio unless they were extreme. But when I played through the 2nd half of the campaign, I was wearing a stereo headset (plugged straight into my controller). I didn’t do any A/B comparisons, but the audio sounded just as I remembered it.

What kind of issues are you hearing?

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by SonofMacPhisto @, Monday, December 09, 2019, 12:16 (1571 days ago) @ CruelLEGACEY

I maintain that if you have to look at a side by side comparison to even notice it (which you totally do for almost every single one of the things Digital Foundry talks about), then it doesn’t matter.

Play the MCC version of Reach without having someone point out those issues, and they’re not even noticeable. Cruel is right—it just looks like Reach.

I disagree with him on the sound, though. That was immediately noticeable to me. It didn’t really affect my enjoyment, but I knew something was off the entire time I played.


I played through half the game using nothing but my TV speakers with the volume way down, so I probably wouldn’t have noticed any problems with the audio unless they were extreme. But when I played through the 2nd half of the campaign, I was wearing a stereo headset (plugged straight into my controller). I didn’t do any A/B comparisons, but the audio sounded just as I remembered it.

What kind of issues are you hearing?

Headset user here. Voices were obnoxiously loud in the mix. Everything else was in a can. I laughed outloud at how bad it was. Was glad my friend and I were just messing around in campaign and having a good time.

If I was going through "seriously" solo I might get irritated enough to just stop playing.

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by CruelLEGACEY @, Toronto, Monday, December 09, 2019, 12:31 (1571 days ago) @ SonofMacPhisto

I maintain that if you have to look at a side by side comparison to even notice it (which you totally do for almost every single one of the things Digital Foundry talks about), then it doesn’t matter.

Play the MCC version of Reach without having someone point out those issues, and they’re not even noticeable. Cruel is right—it just looks like Reach.

I disagree with him on the sound, though. That was immediately noticeable to me. It didn’t really affect my enjoyment, but I knew something was off the entire time I played.


I played through half the game using nothing but my TV speakers with the volume way down, so I probably wouldn’t have noticed any problems with the audio unless they were extreme. But when I played through the 2nd half of the campaign, I was wearing a stereo headset (plugged straight into my controller). I didn’t do any A/B comparisons, but the audio sounded just as I remembered it.

What kind of issues are you hearing?


Headset user here. Voices were obnoxiously loud in the mix. Everything else was in a can. I laughed outloud at how bad it was. Was glad my friend and I were just messing around in campaign and having a good time.

If I was going through "seriously" solo I might get irritated enough to just stop playing.

Yeah, I didn’t have any of those issues at all. Very strange. Was your headset plugged into the Xbox, or into the controller?

Or is this specifically a PC issue? I’m on Xbox One X.

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yeah, it's a PC build issue afaik

by kidtsunami @, Atlanta, GA, Monday, December 09, 2019, 12:43 (1571 days ago) @ CruelLEGACEY

- No text -

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I don't think that's true.

by cheapLEY @, Monday, December 09, 2019, 12:50 (1571 days ago) @ kidtsunami

I'm playing on a One X.

I haven't really looked into, maybe there are multiple, separate issues across the different builds, but the One X version definitely did not sound right or particularly good to me.

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I don't think that's true.

by CruelLEGACEY @, Toronto, Monday, December 09, 2019, 13:00 (1571 days ago) @ cheapLEY

I'm playing on a One X.

I haven't really looked into, maybe there are multiple, separate issues across the different builds, but the One X version definitely did not sound right or particularly good to me.

Are you using a surround setup, or stereo?

What I’m wondering is if the issue is directly related to the audio stream being sent to the Xbox’s optical audio output, or the optical and HDMI outputs, but NOT the controller (which would explain why I didn’t experience any audio issues through my headset).

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I don't think that's true.

by cheapLEY @, Monday, December 09, 2019, 13:34 (1571 days ago) @ CruelLEGACEY

I was using my Sennheiser 598s plugged into the controller. Well, it's plugged into the Turtle Beach chat mixer thing that's plugged into the controller. I suppose I could try eliminating that and seeing if it makes a difference, but I doubt it's an issue.

What I'm hearing might not be super noticeable, I suppose. As I said, the mix just doesn't sound great, like all the sounds are always competing with each other, but that's a problem that I think every Halo game has always had, so I don't think that's a bug, necessarily.

The gun sounds, though, are the real thing. They are still as loud as they should be, but the actual effect sound itself sounds muted or muffled somehow. I noticed it immediately with the assault rifle and the pistol, but I can also see how someone legitimately might not notice a difference. Look up a comparison video and you'll be able to tell if it's something you legitimately didn't experience or just didn't notice.

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Are you guys using virtual surround? (WindowsSonic, I think)

by ZackDark @, Not behind you. NO! Don't look., Monday, December 09, 2019, 16:15 (1571 days ago) @ cheapLEY

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I am not (and I’m not having audio problems)

by CruelLEGACEY @, Toronto, Monday, December 09, 2019, 16:51 (1571 days ago) @ ZackDark

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Yes and No

by cheapLEY @, Monday, December 09, 2019, 16:59 (1571 days ago) @ ZackDark

I've tried Windows Sonic, Dolby Atmos, and the default Xbox setting with no real change.

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by SonofMacPhisto @, Monday, December 09, 2019, 16:21 (1571 days ago) @ CruelLEGACEY

I'm on PC.

Not tech savvy at all, I'll admit, but it's been a while since I heard something that messed up.

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by cheapLEY @, Monday, December 09, 2019, 12:22 (1571 days ago) @ CruelLEGACEY

Gun sounds, mostly. They sound sort of muffled.

I also don’t think the mix in general is particularly good, but I think that’s true of the original.

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by Cody Miller @, Music of the Spheres - Never Forgot, Monday, December 09, 2019, 12:14 (1571 days ago) @ cheapLEY

I’m fully admitting it is not as bad or noticeable as the Halo 1 classic mode visually.

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by CruelLEGACEY @, Toronto, Monday, December 09, 2019, 12:26 (1571 days ago) @ Cody Miller

The thing is, this “technical vs artistic choice” issue is not black and white. As I already described, light bloom can be an artistic decision, but it also has technical implications. It’s very possible that the bloom was added to hide other visual shortcomings. I’m not arguing that this was the case for Reach... I don’t know one way or the other. But that’s the point: it isn’t obvious or clear. In the world of video games, technical issues and artistic choices directly impact each other in such a way that they cannot be easily separated. Frame rates have an aesthetic “look”, completely separate from their impact on gameplay. Remember all the backlash to the 48fps Hobbit movie? It didn’t look the way people like/expect a movie to look. Well, they effect the look of video games too. But within video games, there is also a relationship between frame rate and gameplay, plus other visual performance issues, so all that stuff needs to be balanced out.

My point here is that we really have no way of knowing which elements of Reach’s visuals were purely artistic choices, which were purely technical issues, and which were some kind of compromise between the two. I suspect that almost everything to do with game development falls into that 3rd category. But even if we could say with certainty that specific elements were purely technical in nature, it isn’t obvious that changing them would be an improvement. As my TLoU example illustrates, sometimes an improvement on paper actually harms the overall look.

Playing MCC Reach, I was quite impressed by the overall clarity and crispness of the image. Had the light bloom been cranked up, the visuals might not have made such an impression on me. Or, perhaps I would have liked the look of the game even more. Who knows. My point is that ANY changes are nonetheless changes, and whether or not a player likes or dislikes those changes is going to be a question of personal taste.

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by Cody Miller @, Music of the Spheres - Never Forgot, Monday, December 09, 2019, 13:37 (1571 days ago) @ CruelLEGACEY

As my TLoU example illustrates, sometimes an improvement on paper actually harms the overall look.

And this is the one I am most curious about, because I never played the PS3 version. For me the remaster was 'normal'. I should try it on PS3.

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by cheapLEY @, Monday, December 09, 2019, 14:03 (1571 days ago) @ Cody Miller

As my TLoU example illustrates, sometimes an improvement on paper actually harms the overall look.


And this is the one I am most curious about, because I never played the PS3 version. For me the remaster was 'normal'. I should try it on PS3.

It's sort of a funny example to choose while defending the MCC Reach port, because the ambient occlusion bug is sort of the same thing he's talking about, being able to see where geometry meets in a particular way.

I think the MCC version would undeniably look better with the original ambient occlusion, but I also think it looks completely fine as is. It does make it look noticeably like an old game running at higher resolutions than it was ever intended, though, but that was always going to be the case.

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by CruelLEGACEY @, Toronto, Monday, December 09, 2019, 14:18 (1571 days ago) @ cheapLEY

As my TLoU example illustrates, sometimes an improvement on paper actually harms the overall look.


And this is the one I am most curious about, because I never played the PS3 version. For me the remaster was 'normal'. I should try it on PS3.


It's sort of a funny example to choose while defending the MCC Reach port, because the ambient occlusion bug is sort of the same thing he's talking about, being able to see where geometry meets in a particular way.

I think the MCC version would undeniably look better with the original ambient occlusion, but I also think it looks completely fine as is. It does make it look noticeably like an old game running at higher resolutions than it was ever intended, though, but that was always going to be the case.

Not exactly. The ghosting or double-vision issues I was talking about with Reach just look like a flat-out mistake or problem to me. You can freeze-frame Reach footage and literally see 2 images of a spartan as its moving overlayed on top of each other.

TLoU is more a case of art assets being polished to the level that was appropriate for the screen resolution that was available. Increasing the rendering resolution brings geometry outlines into sharper focus, but it makes the lower-resolution texture graphics more apparent. It’s kinda like me looking at a painting of a tree from 50 feet away without my glasses on. If the painting is detailed enough, it might look utterly real to me. But as soon as I put my glasses on, I can see that it’s just flat. That’s TLoU remastered in my eyes. Better image quality just made it more obvious when certain things looked fake.

Sticking with the same analogy, the original Reach felt like looking at the painting while being blasted drunk, while MCC Reach is like looking at it while sober, lol.

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by cheapLEY @, Monday, December 09, 2019, 14:40 (1571 days ago) @ CruelLEGACEY

Not exactly. The ghosting or double-vision issues I was talking about with Reach just look like a flat-out mistake or problem to me. You can freeze-frame Reach footage and literally see 2 images of a spartan as its moving overlayed on top of each other.

No, I understand that. That's a different thing. That's the temporal anit-aliasing, which is gone now. The ambient occlusion is different. The edges of geometry in the original Reach look much "softer," for lack of a better term. The new Reach is similar to your example with the wall in TLoU Remastered. The edges of the geometry are much more defined, and they look a little less natural than they used to, much more obviously like video game geometry. It's a testament to Bungie's design that it still looks fantastic and fairly real, but it would look better with the proper ambient occlusion.

If you're interested, here's the Digital Foundry video. I think Cody is vastly overstating how big of a deal this is (as it still looks great, and it's much easier to pick this stuff apart when just watching a video, and it's much less noticeable when actually playing the game), but I do think it could look better if this stuff was working correctly. I think depth of field is even more important than ambient occlusion in terms of keeping the aesthetics of the original game. It was used heavily, especially in cutscenes in the original version of the game, and it's basically completely gone from the MCC version.

The stuff I'm talking about starts at 10:49. There's also a sound comparison that starts right at 15:00.

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